Venom in Her Veins

“We brought you dead animal parts,” Julen said.

“How … thoughtful.”

“Skin of a shadow snake,” Zaltys said. “And some other bits. Krailash said you could use them?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, plucking the skin and the pouch from Julen’s hands. “I’m engaged in a little project, at your mother’s behest, Zaltys. I think you’ll enjoy the results.” Without another word, she sealed up the trunk of her tree.

Zaltys and Julen exchanged shrugs. “You never got that food,” she said. “Want to come eat with me? I usually have my meal with the guardsmen.”

“You eat with the servants?” Julen frowned. “Why?”

“Would you rather talk about timetables and schedules and harvesting quotas with my mother, or about dice and fighting and war stories with the guards?”

“The latter, certainly, but-they include you in their conversation? The times I’ve been alone with servants, they barely say anything, except for my guard of the bedchamber, and that’s different.”

“We’re a bit more informal in the Travelers,” she said. “Everyone here depends on everyone else to keep them alive. It’s a dangerous business, going out in the field. If you don’t act like a little lordling, they won’t treat you like one.”

“I’ll do my best,” Julen said, and they started toward the mess tent.

Krailash met them, and held up his hand. “No,” he said. “Your mother wants you to dine with her, Quelamia, and …” he frowned. “There was someone else.”

“Glory,” Zaltys prompted, and Krailash’s expression cleared.

“Yes. Her. A table will be set up by your mother’s wagon.”

“Am I being punished for something?” Zaltys said.

“I think she just wants the family and the most loyal retainers to dine together,” Krailash said. “She wanted me there too, but I said it was better for morale if I ate with my men.” He winked at her-a gesture he’d picked up during his time among humans, though he used it rarely, being a serious person by nature-and said, “You’ll be dining in an hour or so.”

She sighed. “All right. Can I leave Julen with you for a little while?”

“Why?” Krailash said.

“I left my ice arrow in the jungle. Stupid, I know, but my cousin here distracted me. I’d like to go retrieve it.”

“I’ll detail a few guards-”

Zaltys rolled her eyes. “It’s barely ten minutes away, and that’s if I creep along slowly. The scouts didn’t find anything threatening besides the shadow snake, and it’s dead. We’re barely in the jungle yet-I think I can make it that far safely. All right?”

Krailash considered. “All right. This time. But come straight back.”

“Yes, yes.” Zaltys told Julen she’d see him at dinner, then set off toward the jungle. She took a brief side trip to snatch one of the folding shovels the laborers used to dig latrine pits, then went into the trees.

She found the clearing easily, following the marks left by her own trail-Julen hadn’t left any more sign than she had, amazingly, he was skilled at stealth-until she reached the statue’s severed head. The serpent’s body was still there, untouched as yet by predators. Zaltys began digging a hole near the statue, easily turning up spades full of the yielding, damp earth, until she had a small pit a few feet deep. She placed the shadow snake’s body in the hole, and put its eyeless head on top. Then she refilled the hole and piled some of the smaller chunks of statue rubble over the grave, disturbing countless colonies of fat, trundling beetles in the process. She kneeled for a moment by the grave, unsure why she’d felt compelled to bury it, unsure what she should say. “I’m sorry you had to die,” she said finally, and stood up, turning back toward her camp.

While she’d been intent on filling the grave, the clearing had filled with snakes. Mundane ones, not flame spitters or shadow snakes or coil constrictors, just brightly-colored jungle serpents, all lifting their heads in the air and looking at her, swaying slightly. Zaltys started to take a step back, but she sensed, somehow, that they meant her no harm. Were they capable of telling that she’d done a kindness for their larger, more shadowy relative? Or annoyed at the way she’d casually killed one of their own with an arrow earlier? Either seemed possible, though neither was likely. As she moved forward, they slithered aside, clearing a path for her, and Zaltys backed into the trees, watching the serpents as they, in turn, watched her.

Once she’d put a few trees between herself and the clearing, she turned and raced back to camp.

Chapter Six

Along table had been brought in from somewhere-or possibly constructed rapidly by the carpenters and wheelwrights who traveled with the caravan-and covered with a rich pale blue cloth. Actual glass and porcelain dishes had been set out, in place of the usual wood and stoneware, and there was even a cut-glass vase filled with fresh jungle flowers in the table’s center. Only the seating betrayed the essential roughness of the enterprise, being a motley assortment of folding stools and camp chairs. When Zaltys arrived, having changed out of her hunting leathers into something less formal than her city garb but, at least, not actually blood- and sap-stained, Alaia sat at the head of the table dressed in mist-colored robes with a jeweled diadem on her brow, with Julen at her left. He wore a black formal dining suit that Zaltys couldn’t believe he’d bothered to pack. Quelamia sat farther down the table, and wore robes that seemed woven from waterfalls and sunlight and green leaves. Glory sat slouched across from her.

“Glory,” Zaltys said, taking the empty chair at her mother’s right hand. “I didn’t know you even owned a dress!”

Glory sniffed. Her gown was equal parts shadow and spiderweb, clinging to her slim and shapely form, and her jewelry was the silver of moonlight. “I found it at the bottom of a trunk somewhere.”

“Who’s talking?” Julen looked around, frowning.

“Glory,” Alaia said sternly. “Uncloud the boy’s mind. He’s seventh in line to succeed the head of the Guardians-I daresay he has the standing to know you exist, at least for the duration of our meal.”

“Sorry. It’s habit.” Glory waved her hand in a gesture that, Zaltys knew, was entirely unnecessary, and Julen gasped.

“A tiefling! Where’d you come from?”

“Glory is our resident psion,” Alaia said, patting Julen’s knee.

“Most people stare at my horns,” Glory said, and Julen looked away, blushing. Glory preferred to go unnoticed, but Julen had quite obviously noticed the way her clinging gown showed off her bosom. Zaltys snickered, and her mother gave her a warning look.

“It’s so nice to have more family with us,” Alaia said. “I do not imagine we’ll be able to have a formal dinner every night, but I thought it would be a nice welcome for Julen, to help ease him into the reality of life in the caravan.”

“It’s walking, walking, and more walking,” Glory said. “Or, if you’re me, riding in a carriage. And then sitting, and waiting, and sitting some more, and then doing a little work at the end.”

“Some of us have work to do throughout,” Quelamia said. “But, yes, there are long stretches of simply traveling.”

“So … we’re not there yet?” Julen said. “I mean, this is the jungle, right?”

“This is the edge of the jungle,” Zaltys said. “We have to go a lot deeper to get to the terazul blossoms-under trees so dense the sun doesn’t really penetrate, among the wild things and ruins, along tracks that become so overgrown in the months between our visits that Quelamia and the road crews have to clear the paths all over again.”

“The overgrowth is something we encourage, magically,” Alaia said. “Though the jungle scarcely needs any help. But it helps hide the paths from those who would steal our trade secrets.” She gestured to a waiting servant- just a laborer pressed into service for the evening-who brought over a tureen of soup and ladled it out into the